(no subject)

[which_chick]

No work today so Dad and I drove out to look at a house Big Cookie was thinking about buying. It was huge. Gigantic. Massive. While I'm not sure what they'll do, it was an educational experience. There will be work tomorrow, though. I'm going to work.

I'm getting ready for bed, but I'm sure you will all want to hear about my adventures in DDR...



I'm thinking it might be time to move from "Light" to "Standard" some time this week. Most of the light songs are not that damn challenging anymore. Shown below is the complete list of songs for DDR Extreme 2 (Thank you, Wikipedia!!). The first column is what I get on light mode on the song. X means I haven't played it yet and XX means I don't have it unlocked yet. E is the failing grade, instead of F. Most of these were sight-read grades.

B AGAINST ALL ODDS (TAKE A LOOK AT ME NOW) Déjà Vu featuring Tasmin
X As the Rush Comes (Gabriel & Dresden Sweeping Strings Radio Edit) Motorcycle
B Block Rockin' Beats The Chemical Brothers
B BOOM BOOM DOLLAR (K.O.G G3 MIX) King Kong & D. Jungle Girls
A butterfly (UPSWING MIX) SMiLE.dk
E CAPTAIN JACK (GRANDALE REMIX) CAPTAIN JACK
B CARTOON HEROES (Speedy Mix) BARBIE YOUNG
B Crazy In Love wg feat. Indra J
B Genie In A Bottle nc ft. NRG factory
B Get Busy Sean Paul
B I will Survive AKIRA feat. Daline
B IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT E-ROTIC
B IRRESISTIBLEMENT WILDSIDE
B LA COPA DE LA VIDA PATRICK VICTORIO
B LOOK AT US (Daddy DJ Remix) SARINA PARIS
B My My My Armand Van Helden
B Oops!... I Did It Again AKIRA feat. Susan Z
B Play That Funky Music wg feat. Tony L
B Pump Up The Volume M/A/R/R/S
A Silence (Airscape Remix) Delerium feat. Sarah McLachlan
A SPEED OVER BEETHOVEN ROSE
A Spin Spin Sugar (Armand's Dark Garage Mix) Sneaker Pimps
X Wonderful Night (radio edit) Fatboy Slim
B 1998 NAOKI
B ABSOLUTE (Cuff-N-Stuff it Mix) Thuggie D.
B air DJ SIMON
B BE LOVIN D-Crew
C Can Be Real Vision F
B CANDY ♥ RIYU KOSAKA
C Colors (for EXTREME) dj TAKA
B DAIKENKAI Des-ROW feat. TSUBOI for ALPHA
B Happy Wedding ASKA
B Heaven is a '57 metallic gray (gimmix) Hiro feat. Sweet little 30's
B I Need You (Insideout Door Mix) Supa Fova
B INFINITE PRAYER L.E.D. Light feat. Goro
B INJECTION OF LOVE (HINA MIX) AKIRA YAMAOKA
C INSERTiON (Machine Gun Kelly Mix) Thuggie D.
C INSIDE YOUR HEART AKIRA YAMAOKA
C KEEP ON MOVIN' (DMX Mix) N.M.R-typeG
C La Bamba Mexican Folk Song
C L'amour et la liberté (DDR ver.) NAOKI underground
B LOVE IS ORANGE Orange Lounge
B Make A Difference Lala Moore with CoCoRo*Co
C MARIA (I believe...) NAOKI feat. PAULA TERRY
C Miracle Moon (L.E.D. LIGHT STYLE MIX) Togo Project feat. Sana
C PASSION OF LOVE NAOKI feat. PAULA TERRY
B Polovtsian Dances And Chorus Naoto Suzuki feat. Martha
E Quickening dj TAKA
E SAKURA RevenG
XX SANA MOLLETE NE ENTE (B.L.T. STYLE) Togo Project feat. Sana
B Saturday Night Love Sota feat. Brenda V.
XX SEDUCTION nc ft. FINALFORCE
E SEXY PLANET Crystal Aliens
D Sweet Sweet ♥ Magic jun
C sync (EXTREME version) OutPhase
B TOMORROW nc ft. DreamScanner
B TwinBee (Generation X) Final Offset
B un deux trois SDMS
C You gotta move it (feat. Julie Rugaard) Yuzo Koshiro
E AFRONOVA PRIMEVAL 8 bit
D BRILLIANT 2U NAOKI
C BURNIN' THE FLOOR NAOKI
D DIVE Be For U
B DYNAMITE RAVE NAOKI
E Look To The Sky (True Color Mix) SySF feat. Anna
XX PARANOiA 180
XX AFRONOVA (FROM NONSTOP MEGAMIX) RE-VENGE
XX BRILLIANT 2U (K.O.G G3 MIX) NAOKI
XX BURNIN' THE FLOOR (BLUE FIRE mix) NAOKI
XX DYNAMITE RAVE (B4 ZA BEAT MIX) NAOKI
XX Look To The Sky (True Color Mix) SySF feat. Anna
XX SEXY PLANET (FROM NONSTOP MEGAMIX) Crystal Aliens
XX PARANOIA survivor 270
XX PARANOIA survivor MAX 290

On the stuff that I have unlocked, I'm getting mostly letter grade B. It's time to increase the difficulty. Also, the Dance Master mode, where you're off doing missions to open up new areas of the board? It's stopped giving me songs on light. Now it's giving me songs labled "Standard" with (a) corner jumps (left-down, up-right) instead of the up-down or left-right jumps and (b) eighth notes. I have to learn to do these things when I see them. I have a sneaking suspicion that simply stomping a lot is not going to be a successful strategy. Half the problem is in reading it far enough in advance to get the brain-to-feet command set in place. There are also a lot more steps-per-song than there used to be. This is probably the wear-them-down gambit so very popular in video games.

Deep in an anonymous cube farm where video games are conceived, born, and raised to maturity before their eventual release into the wild...

"Hey, Dave, this level isn't hard enough. My grandma could do it blindfolded."
"Well hell. Add another fifty bad guys."
"Does that add to the gameplay? Advance the plotline?"
"Nope, but it'll weed out the lazy and insufficiently determined."
"Dave, I don't think..."
"Look, you. Carpal tunnel is the new Red Badge of Courage."

Anyway, so I'm moving along. What are we currently trying to do? B-17, C-3, C-7, C-9, X-13. I would like to mention, for the record, that one of these damn things (I forget which) wants you to get 20 or more perfect to progress. That is not, in point of fact, the criteria for progression. The criteria for progression is "20 or more perfect AND COMPLETE THE SONG WITHOUT DYING". I know this because I am in the annoying position of being able to do a huge chunk (about the first half) of the song perfect before I fall apart and it tells me I sux0r.

Comments

[gwangi.livejournal.com]

So how is it working-out-wise? I've heard it's pretty good cardio exercise, but I've never actually played it. Do you work up a good sweat jumping around like that?

[ksleet.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on going back to work!

"Hey, Dave, this level isn't hard enough. My grandma could do it blindfolded."
"Well hell. Add another fifty bad guys."

And of course, by then the programmers, designers, and testers have been playing the game for so long that they actually could waltz through the whole thing with their eyes shut, so when the game actually comes out the difficulty level ends up a leetle bit ridiculous. Not that that's ever happened at my employer, of course. Nope.

[which-chick.livejournal.com]

You can get a rather nice workout out of it if you want. It's kind of impact-y, but no worse than jogging or regular aerobics. I sweat while playing. On songs that just slightly exceed my abilities, I get the whole heart pounding, heavy breathing, legs feel like lead thing going on. (Since Dance Master mode is like a video game, you spend a lot of your time working at the ragged edge of your abilities.)